Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Case of the Calcium thief


Every morning at 8:00 am breakfast is served down at the machon.
[note: we’re supposed to have classes at the machon but they are currently adding on to the school so for now we learn in an empty apartment. The Machon contains the Israeli program classes, seminary chaya mushka classes, the office and food]
In the past, girls from the american program would have to shlep down every morning (actually maybe not shlep but rush because food went fast) down the stairs to get food, then rush back up the stairs to class. Basically it was a hassle.

Girls ended up complaining about this annoying process, so a new routine took place. Now, every few days or so we take a bag or two of milk, cereal, coffee and other goodies back up to our apartment to eat. Milk is actually our main necessity. Most of us make a good cup of coffee in the morning, then after our first class, maybe at lunch time and then the last cup around 4 or so. Ok – maybe we don’t consume that much caffeine – that would be kinda dangerous I think…But you get the point right? We love our milk – and we only have so much of it….

Except… this past Monday…At the end of class my dorm counselor asked me to bring up some milk because we were low on supplies. I told the rest of the girls near me that we should bring some up and they gave me a look of… “oh…um…ok…” you know that look of “I am not doing anything for anyone” so ok whatever you know, I went to the kitchen [avoiding the tempermental Israeli cook who always shouts at me in Hebrew] grabbed 5 bags of milk [ milk comes in a bag here… get used to it ] and ran upstairs.

I was so happy with my achievement – 5 whole bags! Yeah! This will last forever!! But when I got inside and told the news, I found out that one of the other girls had listened to what I said…and brought up 6 bags before me.
In total, our apartment had 11 bags of milk. Wow…that should REALLY last forever, huh?

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Next, I have a slightly off topic story about the case of the missing pudding.

Jane* [names have been changed for privacy] bought a pudding one day, just for the heck of it. She put her name on it – like all girls do here - so it won’t be mistaken for free food. Later that night when she went to eat it she couldn’t find it. The pudding was no where to be found……

Linda* hearing the story immediately remembered what had happened to her on Chanukah vacation. She had bought herself 4 puddings before vacation, put her name on all of them then wrapped them in a bag with her name written all over it and placed it in the fridge. By night time there was 3 puddings left. The next morning there was 2. She herself hadn’t touched any of it…
Linda and her friends looked through all the garbages to find her pudding containers…they didn’t show up. A random thought passed through her friends mind “what if this pudding thief is eating the pudding and throwing it off the balcony?” Yeah ok, no joke. They looked from the back balcony and found her empty pudding containers thrown across the lawn……

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One day a girl saw Nichole* eating pudding that had Linda’s name on. “where did you get the pudding?” she asked politely. “oh, I found it in the fridge.” ….uhuh.. the girl then says “oh, well it has Linda’s name on it – that means its hers”… nichole, maybe a little shocked says “oh…” and the end to that story..

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Just last night Wendy went into Linda’s room holding up a chocolate bar wrapper with a sad puppy face on. “oh did you come to share with us?” a girl inquires. “no” Wendy said “actually…I bought this chocolate bar a few days ago and I havnt touched it at all. Just now I found this left on my bed.” Someone had gone into her room, taken the bar of chocolate out of her bag and eaten it up…

Earlier that day someone had noticed the pudding thief [nichole] wandering the hall of their apartment (she doesn’t live in that apartment ) looking around and touching things….

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Ok – if I havn’t lost you yet…Can you get where I’m going with this?

It is obvious to me and everyone else that there is a girl taking other girls food.


Which brings me back to the story of the milk.
We had 11 bags of milk. Over all, I’d say that should last us a little bit over 9-10 days yeah? It’s been Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – and we can now count a total of 3 bags left. 8 bags of milk consumed in less than 4 days.

Our one conclusion is that we have all seen one specific girl pour a huge bowl of milk for herself and not finish it. Use half a bag for hot chocolate that she said was for “everyone” [ no one wanted ] and even make a huge pot of oatmeal with it and not finish it. Everyone has seen this one girl Overdosing on milk.. Who is the same girl seen to be eating Linda’s pudding, the same one seen to be wandering in another’s apartment before a chocolate bar was gobbled up and most likely the same girl who stole Jane’s one pudding.

Pudding, Chocolate, Milk…

I’d say we have a calcium addict on our hands..

Monday, December 24, 2007

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Escape to J-town

My general rule to life is that where one finds a group of girls living together, there is more than likely to be drama amongst them.

It’s an unfortunate thing I think that girls create such negative atmospheres for themselves. Personally, I always try to stay as far away as possible from the insanity of dorm life.

However, ever since I came back from Hungary… I couldn’t escape the scene. I was involved so much in it that at one point I thought I would bite the next person’s head off.

Later I decided that you know what, sometimes violence isn’t the answer. Instead, my friend Chaya came up with the idea that we should escape to Jerusalem for a day, maybe go shopping, go to the western wall…chillax…



We left early in the morning before people woke up (which added to the “escaping” effect because some girls didn’t know where we were) and arrived to J-town around 11:30 AM. We walked around, explored the shuk and ate lunch at the green village. The food was healthy yet served “cafeteria” style. You grab a plate, fill it up with goodies ( I happened to get rice with tomato sauce, sweet potato, garlic bread and eggplant salad) then make your way to the register where they weigh your plate. The heavier it is – the more money…right?

After lunch we walked through the old city to the Kotel (the Western Wall). I had a chance to clear my head…

We ended the day walking through the only mall in Jerusalem. You know, I can probably count the number of malls in all of Israel…Its hard to imagine sometimes how Angelinos would survive Israel…The whole idea of shopping, for fun? Definitely something that has never crossed their minds.

Ok, it wasn’t a jam packed day full of exciting tours and events… It was just an escape moment…

All in all, It was a great day.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Moving

Last month the staff here at Machon Alte decided that it was time to move into bigger apartments. The move was pretty neccessary...because at the time we had 4 girls sleeping in what was supposed to be the living room and all the other rooms in the apartment were crammed to the fullest.
Not to mention we had a few minor problems in the apartment that needed to be fixed.. for instance we had a leaky shower and toilet (yes...toilet...). Another issue- our hot water heater (called the "dude"..i dont know why) could not be used at the same time as the dryer or else our power shuts off. Lastly, our front balcony door was broken..just a little (its not attached to the bottom hinges).
Dont get me wrong though, this is not at all complaints. Everything here has been wonderful and I really love Israel. But you know, these issues had to be addressed..So instead of renting these icky small apartments - the school decided to rent big ones!
Everyone was excited about the move. New apartments, bigger space, new roommates!

Anyway, we finally moved in last night. Packed all our stuff - shlepped it down stairs and back up more - unpacked..and I have to say...my new room is really great. Its small, I have one - great - roommate and I have privacy. Its a big difference to last years 5 rommates deal...

I want to mention that nobody has to worry about me because i am now sleeping in a bomb shelter.......


Saturday, December 15, 2007

Blogging block


Its pretty torturous to live in an interesting place, do interesting things and meet interesting people but not be able to write one word on it. I've done so much in the past 2 months... I even started 3 posts but just left them unfinished..

ok..enough is enough..something is coming..i know it.